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Srinagar, August 30 (KMS): In occupied Kashmir, the daughter of a Kashmiri, Ghulam Mohammad Butt, 89, Mumtaz Banoo, 16, abducted by the Indian army on June 3, 2000 has not been recovered.

Ghulam Mohammad Butt, a resident of Dhar Village in Kastigarh Tehsil of Doda district and his family in a media interview said on June 3, 2000, he, father of four boys and four girls, started his journey with his two sons Hanif and Bhaktawar on foot to a distant forest to graze their herd. Back home, Mumtaza Banoo, then 16, and Farida Banoo, 19 stayed with their mother, Zoona Begum to look after the house.

“My two sons were studying in an Islamic seminary in Gujarat and other two daughters were married and living separately in distant villages,” he added. He said same day late in the afternoon, two SPOs along with army men from 10 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) during a routine passed by their house; the army men pumped bullets in their two dogs, killing them instantly.

“Mumtaz and Farida were crying as to why they killed our dogs,” recalls Zoona. “When I asked them why they killed our dogs, the army personnel said that whenever they used to pass from the village, the dogs used to bark.”

On June 4, 2000, suddenly, a huge bang on the door made Zoona restless. “We didn’t open the door and suddenly the troops barged from inside the window after breaking the iron grills and started dragging my daughter Mumtaz,” she recalls. Zoona still remembers, how her daughter was crying and sobbing, asking her tormentors to leave her. “But they disappeared with her in the dead of the night,” she says.

A First Information Report (FIR) was registered with the District Headquarters, Doda. In the FIR two local SPOs who worked as informants were named. Since then, the case registered at the police station never progressed. A year after Mumtaz’s disappearance, her elder sister, Farida then 19, who had seen her being taken away by the forces died due to cardiac arrest. “She couldn’t bear separation from her younger sister and died,” says Ghulam Mohammad amid tears.

Ghulam Mohammad fears the worst, “I know that they have killed her the very same year and I don’t want their blood money,” he says after a deep pause. “What I still want is that if she is dead then they show me her grave, so that I can assure myself that I have her dead resting peacefully below the earth and if alive then bring back her to us,” he adds.